Terminally Determined
by Celyn Rhys
Summary: "It was the laughter of a terminally ill patient. Savouring every moment and happy to still be there with them all...but hairs away from bursting into tears. How long had she been laughing like that? Since the day they met?...Before then?" Tidus/Yuna.


_"More than any time in history mankind faces a crossroad. One path leads to utter hopelessness and despair, the other to total extinction. Let us hope we have the wisdom to choose correctly."_ - **Woody Allen**

* * *

It was so surreal to think about how this could have been it. Truly, implacably, undeniably_ it._ All that travelling, all that walking, all that _fighting_, the entire time feeling like a stranger in his own skin. Like he'd been wrapped up in a brown paper parcel and passed roughly between couriers; no clue of his destination, or even his sender, at first. He walked amongst even more surreal people in this bizarre land that time had quite literally forgotten.

And yet, they seemed so perfectly focused on the task ahead of them. The occasional smile with the forced laugh always seemed to fade into a grim line of determination; at times it even felt as though they were walking a coffin to its grave. But they had their place in the world. Perfectly set on a board, aligned flawlessly and facing the incoming answer head on. What exactly that answer _was_ eluded Tidus for the best part of the pilgrimage. For him, a situation was like a sheet of music - he could never seem to decipher the notes, but he always played the piece as a whole without fault. It's just...if only someone had said something, _anything_...

Where he was placed in all this seemed like a mystery.

In fact, it wasn't until much later that he realised exactly where he was set. Everyone; every woman, every man, every child, every animal, even every _fiend_. Every single thing to exist, or to have previously existed, was disposable. Like a simple pawn moved only to distract the King, the grand cause and very purpose of this spiral of demise. Nothing but mere fodder in a war that would always be fought unfairly. What if some people...what if _everyone_, was worth so much more than that? Why was the current generation who still lived to tell the tale so useless and disrespected by the side they protected?

Of course the King was a force to be reckoned with, on both sides (although one having a severe advantage of immortality over the other). But what about the Queen piece? Who stood by the grand component in this fight against death, sacrificing themselves in the process?

For Yu Yevon, it was his own daughter.

Lady Yunalesca.

Although the tension was as thick as the smothering sunset that surrounded them, Tidus inclined his head to consider Yuna. The breeze was alive and circulating around them, and yet remained gentle. Like a shy messenger frantic to relay its message and leave. If Sin was the Knight - the very core of the spiral that covered the King and provided immunity above all else - then Yuna herself was perched at the very apex; about to plunge head first into the eye of the storm.

This storm would ravage the confidence of everyone, destroy so much, and slaughter so many. Yet at the end of the game, when checkmate was so teasingly close, Yuna and her Final Aeon would plummet into the place of Jecht. The one whom he coveted the most would erase the lingering presence of the one whom he had once detested above all else. But it was the wrong kind of replacement. Why did everything here have to involve _death_?

Yuna's Final Aeon, her most beloved and trusted Guardian, would become Sin.

They would become the new centre of the spiral. The new Knight to mindlessly act as an immovable shell to protect the King cowering inside. That couldn't have been what anyone wanted, let alone someone as altruistic and level-headed as her. So then _why_ was this game so damn un-winnable? The illusion of victory always only ever reaped a temporary reward. The loss was always forthcoming and perpetual and most of all, inevitable.

If left completely unchallenged, the board and this relentless game would surely smite the intire population. It would surely smite _them._ Wakka would never see another Blitzball, Lulu would never mull over Chappu, Rikku wouldn't be scared of thunder and Auron...well, Auron probably wouldn't change. He always _did _like to be as difficultly straight forward as possible. Yet to stand up and overthrow the domineering opposition would also lead to death. It seemed like the only true way to prolong life in Spira, was just to sit back and let fate take its course across the board.

Put it all on 'auto-pilot', as Cid would say.

How many people had Jecht killed in these past 10 years? Thousands?...Hundreds of thousands? He'd never been one for pure academic study himself, but even Mi'hen would have trouble crunching those numbers accurately. The Farplane amassed a much larger population than Spira's living. So many familiar, tempting faces to entice a reunion with. Perhaps that was all that life really was here; nothing but a prolonged intake of breath, the shudder of a single heartbeat, and then eternity was followed by the Knight.

This was all so _backwards_. There really was no gauging exactly how many people had just completley surrendered to this numbing mindset. They hadn't made their move on the board of life and were overridden by the opposition of death. No effort what-so-ever.

Yet, there were still so many like Yuna, who had decided to employ an age old strategy to delay the opponant's moves. Not to win, of course. There was no winning in Spira. Not really.

And Tidus was _so very _accustomed to winning. Losing was not in his vocabulary - it was simply not an option, let alone the end result. If they couldn't overthrow the King, Yu Yevon, and his Knight, Sin, then the answer was straightforward. They had to flip the board. All the pieces would slide, tumble and clatter out of place, and the grand piece once so closely guarded by its pawns, by its Knight and by its Queen, would be left wide open for the taking.

* * *

_"Would you like some sand with that sand?"_

_The young summoner bit down unevenly on her chapped lip, her eyes creasing at the corners in mirth. Tidus rose an eyebrow and peered down his nose at her in mock seriousness. His eyes were narrowed and his mouth was puckered as though he'd just eaten a lemon whole._

_"Oh, I don't know - let me just top up my glass of sand first."_

_They were all here, this time. Back in this scorching desert, chasing cacti with the low hum of the airship over their shoulders. It seemed so trivial and more than a little surreal, to just be sitting here whilst Rikku stalked a particularly dopish Cactuar by the Oasis. Wakka would glare with the power of a thousand suns at a disused and piping hot piece of Machina, his arm thrashing out suddenly every so often to swat an imaginary insect on his neck._

_"Bah! We never get these pests in Besaid, ya? So then how come they ain't bitin' you, Lu?"_

_"Oh no - you spilt some!" Tidus suddenly cried as the dry grains poured like a liquid through Yuna's pale fingers when she grasped some in her fist. "Wait here while I go and find a sandviette for you to mop up that sand with." _

_"Alright" The summoner said softly, grinning, "While you're gone, would you please do me a favour and make me... a sandwich...!"_

_"A sandwi-? Oh my god, that's just _awful_, man."_  
_  
__An ebbing flow of laughter followed their banter, and to Tidus, the sound left him easily and with earnest. Yet for Yuna, it was the laughter of a terminally ill patient. Savouring every moment and happy to still be there with them all...but hairs away from bursting into tears. How long had she been laughing like that? Since the day they met?...Before then?_  
_  
__Although at first it had been a sound he'd prided himself in being able to provoke, now it only filled him with the desire to stop it. So instead of playing by the rules of that moment, and doing the right thing, he flipped the board._

_Screw the rules, Tidus thought lazily as his dry lips touched Yuna's, in front of the whole ensemble. He'd never really minded having an audience anyway._

_

* * *

_

...If Yuna was the King, Tidus thought suddenly, out of nowhere, then he was most certainly the Queen. With a King who was so terminally determined to sacrifice herself for the greater good of her pawns - to prolong the lives of others at the cost of her own, then he would find a way to protect her.

He would find _another_ way...

...even if, after all they'd been through, it meant that he was captured. Determination was contagious, after all.

* * *

**The End.**

**Author's Note: **Review and I'll personally respond; I know being ignored for your efforts can put people off quite a bit. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it as much I enjoyed writing it!**  
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